WASHINGTON (AP) —The U.S. announced new COVID-19 testing requirements Wednesday for all travelers from China, joining other nations imposing restrictions because of a surge of infections.
The increase in cases across China follows the rollback of the nation's strict anti-virus controls. China's “zero COVID” policies had kept the country's infection rate low but fueled public frustration and crushed economic growth.
The new U.S. requirements, which start Jan. 5, apply to travelers regardless of their nationality and vaccination status.
In a statement explaining the testing, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited the surge in infections and what it said was a lack of adequate and transparent information from China, including genomic sequencing on the viral strains circulating in the country.
“These data are critical to monitor the case surge effectively and decrease the chance for entry of a novel variant of concern,” the CDC said.
Some scientists are worried the COVID-19 surge in China could unleash a new coronavirus variant on the world that may or may not be similar to the ones circulating now. That’s because every infection is another chance for the virus to mutate.
“What we want to avoid is having a variant enter into the U.S. and spread like we saw with delta or omicron,” said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
But the CDC's action may be less about stopping a new variant from crossing U.S. borders and more about increasing pressure on China to share more information, said Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, adding he hopes the restrictions "aren’t kept in place longer than they need to be.”
“I don’t think it’s going to have a major impact in slowing the spread of COVID-19,” Dowdy said. “We have a whole lot of transmission of COVID-19 here within our borders already.”
Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University, agreed China isn't sharing enough genomic sequencing information. But he also said the U.S. has become a little complacent about sequencing and needs to redouble its own efforts. The CDC also announced the expansion of an early warning program that tests volunteers at select airports for new and rare variants of the coronavirus. That program will expand to airports in Seattle and Los Angeles.
Under the new U.S. rules, travelers to the U.S. from China, Hong Kong and Macau, will be required to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel and provide a negative test before boarding their flight. The testing applies to anyone 2 years and older, including U.S. citizens.
It will apply to people traveling from China via a third country and to people connecting through the U.S. as they go on to other destinations. Anyone testing positive more than 10 days before the flight can provide documentation showing they’ve recovered from COVID-19 instead of a negative test result.
It will be up to the airlines to confirm negative tests and documentation of recovery before passengers board.
Other countries have taken similar steps in an effort to keep infections from spreading beyond China's borders. Japan will require a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival for travelers from China, and Malaysia announced new tracking and surveillance measures. India, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan are requiring virus tests for visitors from China.
Lunar New Year, which begins Jan. 22, is usually China's busiest travel season, and China announced Tuesday it will resume issuing passports for tourism for the first time since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
“We look forward to welcoming Chinese travelers back to the United States,” U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman said in a statement. He called the U.S. approach to testing inbound travelers “reasonable and appreciated.”
The U.S. action is a return to testing requirements for some international travelers. The Biden administration lifted the last of such mandates in June. At that time, the CDC continued to recommend that people boarding flights to the U.S. get tested close to departure time and not travel if they are sick.
“We’ve done this before. We can do it again,” Dowdy said.
Early in the pandemic, the U.S. barred entry to foreigners traveling from China, weeks after the virus first emerged there three years ago, and dozens of other countries were added to the list. The country started lifting travel bans late last year, but required travelers to the U.S. to be vaccinated and tested.
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BEIJING (AP) — China says it will resume issuing passports for tourism in another big step away from anti-virus controls that isolated the country for almost three years, setting up a potential flood of Chinese going abroad for next month’s Lunar New Year holiday.
The announcement Tuesday adds to abrupt changes that are rolling back some of the world’s strictest anti-virus controls as President Xi Jinping's government tries to reverse an economic slump. Rules that confined millions of people to their homes kept China’s infection rate low but fueled public frustration and crushed economic growth.
The latest decision could send free-spending Chinese tourists to revenue-starved destinations in Asia and Europe for Lunar New Year, which begins Jan. 22 and usually is the country's busiest travel season. But it also presents a danger they might spread COVID-19 as infections surge in China.
Travel services companies Trip.com and Qunar said international ticket bookings and searches for visa information on their websites rose five to eight times after Tuesday's announcement. Top destinations included Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the United States, Britain and Australia.
Japan, India, South Korea and Taiwan have responded to the Chinese wave of infections by requiring virus tests for visitors from China.
China stopped issuing visas to foreigners and passports to its own people at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.
The National Immigration Administration of China said it will start taking applications Jan. 8 for passports for tourists to go abroad.
The agency said it will take applications to extend, renew or reissue visas but gave no indication when they might be issued to first-time applicants.
China will “gradually resume” admitting foreign visitors, the agency said. It gave no indication when tourist travel from abroad might resume.
The changes will “create better conditions for orderly cross-border travel" and "bring more benefits to global economic development,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin.
China will “work with all countries” to “restore safety and stability to global industrial and supply chains and promote world economic recovery,” Wang said.
Health experts and economists expect the ruling Communist Party to keep limits on travel into China until at least mid-2023 while it carries out a campaign to vaccinate millions of elderly people. Experts say that is necessary to prevent a public health crisis.
During the pandemic, Chinese with family emergencies or work travel deemed important could obtain passports, but some students and businesspeople with visas to go to foreign countries were blocked by border guards from leaving. The handful of foreign businesspeople and others who were allowed into China were quarantined for up to one week.
Before the pandemic, China was the biggest source of foreign tourists for most of its Asian neighbors and an important market for Europe and the United States.
The government has dropped or eased most quarantine, testing and other restrictions within China, joining the United States, Japan and other governments in trying to live with the virus instead of stamping out transmission.
Japan and India have begun requiring virus tests for travelers from China. South Korea tests all visitors with elevated temperatures. South Korea says anyone who tests positive will be quarantined at home or in a hotel for a week.
South Korean officials said possible additional measures for arrivals from China will be announced Friday.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to relate internal discussions, said Washington is considering taking similar steps.
Taiwan on Wednesday announced visitors from China will be tested starting Jan. 1.
Hong Kong authorities said Wednesday they would scrap some of the city's COVID-19 restrictions, including PCR tests for all inbound travelers and vaccination requirements to enter certain venues. The easing comes as the southern city prepares for a reopening of borders with mainland China next month.
On Monday, the Chinese government said it would remove quarantine requirements for travelers arriving from abroad, also effective Jan. 8. Foreign companies welcomed the change as an important step to revive slumping business activity.
Business groups have warned global companies were shifting investment away from China because foreign executives were blocked from visiting.
The American Chamber of Commerce in China says more than 70% of companies that responded to a poll this month expect the impact of the latest wave of outbreaks to last no more than three months, ending in early 2023.
The government has stopped reporting nationwide case numbers but announcements by some cities indicate at least tens and possibly hundreds of millions of people might have been infected since the surge began in early October.
Experts have forecast 1 million to 2 million deaths in China through the end of 2023.
Also Monday, the government downgraded the official seriousness of COVID-19 and removed it from a list of illnesses that require quarantine. It said authorities would stop tracking close contacts and designating areas as being at high or low risk of infection.
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